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She’d made the decision to care for Bella swiftly. On the night of the accident she’d gone to Rachel’s house, numb with shock, and paid the sitter, then tiptoed into the little room where Bella lay innocently asleep.
She’d looked down at the little girl’s soft, chubby-cheeked face, at her closed eyes and her soft, dark eyelashes and her heart had almost broken.
There’d been no question. She had to devote herself to caring for Rachel’s daughter. A succession of babysitters could never provide the round-the-clock security and stability a two-year-old needed.
But the transition from marketing to motherhood hadn’t been easy, especially when in the midst of it all, Amy’s boyfriend, Dominic, had suggested that they both needed time out…to give each other some space.
Amy had known it was the thin edge of the wedge that would crack their relationship irreparably apart. Dominic was jealous of the closeness she’d quickly developed with Bella. He’d started to snap at the little girl when she’d innocently interrupted his computer games. Being upfront as usual, Amy had told him that things had to change now that Bella had arrived.
In the end they’d had the most appallingly ugly and bitter row over Bella. Dominic couldn’t see why Amy should automatically assume responsibility.
The fact that she’d been named as Bella’s guardian was a mere technicality, he said. It didn’t mean she had to care for the child day in, day out—which proved that, after almost twelve months together, he didn’t really know Amy at all.
She’d reminded him that he was living in her house, that she always had to jog his memory to get him to pay for his share of the food, the phone and the electricity, and she’d also let him know how annoying it was when he disappeared into the spare room and spent hours on computer games, racking up a huge Internet bill as well.
Whether Dominic had left her or whether she’d finally shown him the door was academic now. The whole catastrophe had been draining, and Amy might have collapsed in a complete heap if Bella hadn’t been so resilient and such an utter darling.
It was amazing how quickly the little girl had transferred her trust to Amy, and the nights when she’d cried for her mummy had gradually lessened, but it still cut Amy to the core that she was now the focus of the little girl’s love, the love that rightly belonged to Rachel.
She’d get weepy, though, if she thought too much about that.
For much of the journey the vehicle rattled down a long straight track, which every so often climbed a low hill, then dipped down again to cross a rising creek. Yesterday, on her journey north to Tamundra, the creeks had been mere trickles, but already these gullies had begun to swell with fast-flowing muddy water.
Seth drove in silence and Amy felt the beginnings of a tension headache. She let her head fall back and tried again to relax as she watched the rain slide down her window. Every so often she caught the blurred outlines of cattle hunched together in mobs, looking desolate. A stalwart few continued to graze, apparently untroubled by the driving rain.
Bella woke up and was immediately chirpy and eager.
‘Moo cow!’ she announced importantly. And then ‘Moo! Moo!’ over and over.
Amy stole glances in Seth’s direction and she was quietly pleased to catch him smiling at Bella’s enthusiasm.
He looked incredibly gorgeous when he smiled.
Amy wondered if he’d been infatuated by Rachel. Most guys had been. Had there been other girlfriends since? She supposed there wouldn’t be too many available women here in the wilderness, but perhaps there was a beautiful girl who waited impatiently in Cairns for Seth’s visits.
‘How long were you and Rachel friends?’ Seth asked suddenly, much to Amy’s surprise.
At first she was nervous that he’d guessed the direction of her thoughts, and almost as quickly she worried that he’d somehow made the link between Bella and Rachel. But he looked too relaxed, and Amy let out a huff of relief.
Actually, she was really pleased that he wanted to talk, especially to talk about Rachel. It would pave the way for the news she had to share.
‘Rachel and I were both fifteen when we met,’ she told him, ‘and we were in hospital, having our appendixes out.’
‘Ouch. I suppose you cheered each other up,’ he suggested with a smile.
Heavens. A smile and conversation. Things were looking up.
Amy returned his smile. ‘We had a great time. We were in a small hospital run by nuns and we had beds side by side in a room to ourselves. We soon discovered we were in the same year at school, so we had tons to talk about.’
‘And you stayed in touch afterwards?’
She nodded. ‘Rachel went to a very snobby, private girls’ college and I went to an ordinary co-ed state school, so we didn’t see much of each other, but we kept in email contact. And we got together on weekends sometimes. Rachel even came away with my family to the beach for the summer holidays.’
‘You really clicked,’ Seth said quietly.
‘We did, and then we ended up at Melbourne University, and that’s when we truly became best friends.’
She took a packet of butterscotch from her bag. ‘Would you like one of these?’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’ll unwrap it for you.’ Carefully, she untwisted the ends of the paper and as she offered him the sweet his hand bumped hers. She felt a zap of electricity that made her gasp. Good grief. She shouldn’t be getting the hots for this guy.
To cover the reaction she said quickly, ‘I suppose you went to a boarding school.’
Seth nodded, and finished chewing before he said, ‘I used to fly down to school in Townsville.’
‘I’ve always thought boarding school would be great fun.’
‘Yeah. We had plenty of fun.’ He looked genuinely happy as he said this.
‘And what about after school?’ Amy prompted, more tentatively. ‘Did you go straight back to your uncle’s property?’
An almost imperceptible sigh escaped Seth. ‘I spent a year in England, playing rugby.’
She was so surprised she almost cried out. She struggled to picture Seth Reardon in a rugby jersey on a soft green English playing field, surrounded by his teammates. He was athletic, certainly, but was he a team player?
She’d had him pegged as a natural-born loner. ‘Was it hard to come back to Cape York?’
‘Not at all.’
He said this quickly, almost too quickly, and his eyes became very bright and hard, as if he was warding off any further discussion.
After that, they continued their journey in silence once more, while Amy’s mind seethed with unasked questions. There were so many gaps in Seth’s story, things he plainly had no intention of sharing with her. Where was his mother? Was she dead too? Did he miss Sydney? Or rugby? Or England?
Most of all, she wondered if he really liked living on Cape York. If he didn’t, why had he stayed up here in the north? If he’d been willing to move south, he and Rachel and Bella might have been a family.
One thing was becoming very clear to her, however. She’d underestimated Seth Reardon.
She’d come north with the vague idea that she’d meet a guy wearing an Akubra hat, a suntan and a smile. She’d imagined an attractive, but uncomplicated, country fellow, who’d had an affair with her best friend and who now deserved to know that the affair had resulted in…consequences.
She’d been a fool to think that it would be easy and straightforward to share the news about Bella with him.
Twisting around in her seat, she looked back at Bella, who’d dozed off again, but then woken up to gaze around the interior of the vehicle with a slightly dazed frown. Amy felt her heart swell with love for the dear, innocent little scrap.
It was hard to believe that she’d grown so close to her in two short months, but the truth was her emotional connection to Rachel’s daughter was so strong at times it shocked her.
They’d been on quite a journey together, she and this little girl, as they’d slowly learned to cope with unbearable loss, and to live with each other.
To love each other.
These days, more often than not, Amy woke when Bella bounced into her bed, eager to greet her with hugs and kisses and laughter.
With Bella, Amy had discovered the joy of simply being alive. She’d relearned the pleasure of simple things like trips to the park to feed the ducks, riding slippery slides, and splashing in wading pools. She’d forgotten that it could be so much fun to blow bubbles at bath time, or to share bedtime picture books.
Already, it was hard to remember a time when corporate launches with champagne cocktails and gourmet canapés had been vitally, crucially important.
More often than not, meal preparation these days involved oatmeal or boiled eggs and toast soldiers, and bunny-shaped mugs of milk. Amy had learned to always carry an extra bag, to accommodate Bella’s sunhat and a change of clothes, as well as a drink and a banana, or tiny packets of sultanas for snacks.
Her life in marketing had been put on hold.
Being self-employed had made the transition possible—not easy, but possible—but there was a limit to how long she could continue this lifestyle without earning. She’d already gobbled up a major chunk of her savings. Luckily, she had no big debts hanging over her, but she knew she would have to return to work soon.
Just the same, she certainly hadn’t come looking for Bella’s father because she needed his financial help. Caring for Bella might require a few sacrifices, but Amy knew she would manage.
Eventually, they stopped at a gate and Seth got out to open it.
‘Are we almost there?’ Amy asked hopefully when he got back into the car. Bella was grizzling more loudly now. ‘Is this Serenity?’
‘This is one of the boundary gates,’ he said as he steered the vehicle between timber fence posts. ‘I’m afraid it’ll be another half-hour before we reach the homestead.’
Another half-hour…It was already dusk, and growing dark quickly because of the rain. Amy found it hard to imagine owning so much land that you could drive across it for such a long time.
Seth got out again to shut the gate, and when he came back he said, ‘Would you like to let Bella out for a bit, to stretch her legs?’
‘I’m sure she’d love that, but it’s raining.’
‘You have raincoats, don’t you?’
‘Well, yes.’
Seth shrugged. ‘This is the tropics, after all. The rain’s not cold.’
‘You’re right.’ In a matter of moments, Amy found their raincoats, which she’d packed in an outside pocket of her suitcase, and she was buttoning Bella into hers. She glanced at Seth, who was standing alone…looking…not lonely, surely?
A sudden instinct prompted her to ask, ‘Are you coming to walk with us?’
For the first time, Seth lost his air of cool certainty. His bright eyes rested on Bella’s eager face peering up at him from beneath the yellow hood of her raincoat. The lines of his face softened, then broke into a smile.
Wow! Amy felt the impact of his smile deep in the pit of her stomach.
‘Why not?’ he said and he snagged a dark oilskin coat from the back of the vehicle.
Amy’s chest felt weirdly tight, but moments later they set off together along the red dirt track between straggling gumtrees and pandanus palms.
Bella was thrilled to be allowed out in the rain, skipping between the two adults. She insisted on holding their hands, but every so often she would let go and dash off to splash in a puddle, then she would turn and grin at them ecstatically and Amy’s heart would leap into her throat.
Surely Seth must see how closely the little girl’s smile resembled his?
But apart from that anxiety, Amy enjoyed the little outing much more than she should have. There was something about being out in the rain in the middle of a journey through nowhere, just for fun, that felt impossibly rash and carefree. Seth was smiling almost the whole time and their gazes kept meeting. Every time his blue eyes met hers she felt a knife-edgy thrill zap through her.
It was inappropriate and foolish, but she couldn’t help it. A strange, shiver-sweet happiness seemed to have gripped her and she felt as if she could have walked along the darkening, rain swept track for ever.
But at last she had to be sensible and to suggest that it was time to head back to the ute.
As they went on Seth had to get out to open and close gates at least another six times. Each time he got back into the car, he brought the smell of damp earth and a fine spray of rain.
‘I should be looking after the gates,’ Amy protested after the third stop.
‘Outback gates are notoriously tricky.’ He frowned as he looked at her more closely. ‘Are you OK? You’re looking pale.’
‘Bit tired. That’s all. I’m fine, thanks.’ Truth was, she was feeling ill and scared, scared of the shivers of awareness this man caused. It was ridiculous to feel so hung up about him. He was Rachel’s ex, and Bella’s father, and once she revealed her real reason for coming here he might hate her.
‘We’re almost there,’ he said, sounding surprisingly gentle.
Ahead of them, Amy saw lights winking through the rain, and then at last they pulled up at the bottom of a short flight of wooden steps.
She was familiar with pictures in magazines of homesteads on Outback cattle stations—ageing timber houses with corrugated iron roofs and wrap-around verandas, sitting in the middle of grassy paddocks.
It was too dark to see much tonight, but if she guessed correctly they’d arrived at the back of this house. Rain drummed loudly on the iron roof, and the veranda was in darkness but a light came on as they got out of the vehicle.
They hung their damp coats on pegs near the back door and Seth turned to Amy. ‘I’ll show you straight to your room,’ he said, watching her with a thoughtful frown.
‘Thanks.’
He walked ahead of them, carrying their bags, and Amy followed, hugging Bella close, reassured by the familiar warmth and softness of her baby skin. She wondered where Seth’s uncle was. Wondered if she should tell Seth tonight, while they were alone, that this little girl was his daughter.
Surely it was better to get the truth out in the open sooner rather than later?
Fear rippled through her as she pictured the moment of revelation. She had no idea how Seth would react, whether he would be angry, or shocked, or disbelieving. Or suspicious of her motives.
Or all of the above.
Perhaps it would be prudent to wait till the morning. It had been a long, unsettling day. Her tiredness made her fragile and susceptible to tears and she wanted to be strong like a mother lion when she broached Bella’s future with this man.
‘I thought this room should suit you,’ Seth said, pushing open a door.
‘Oh.’ Amy couldn’t hold back an exclamation of surprise as she entered the room and he set their bags down. ‘This is lovely.’
It was the prettiest room possible, with soft, pale green carpet and matching green and cream wallpaper. Romantic mosquito nets hung over twin beds and French doors opened onto the veranda.
‘There’s an en-suite bathroom through there.’ He pointed to a door.
‘Thank you, Seth. That’s wonderful.’
Setting Bella down, Amy peeped around the doorway. The bathroom was sparkling clean and as lovely as the bedroom. Thick, soft towels hung on the rails and there was even a purple orchid in a cut-glass vase on the washbasin. It was amazing, really, to find such comfort all the way out here, like coming across a mirage in the middle of a desert.
Perhaps Seth and his uncle were used to having guests. Amy wondered if he wasn’t nearly as antisocial as she’d believed. This wonder was compounded when she turned back into the bedroom, and found Bella and the antisocial man in question trying to touch the ends of their noses with their tongues.
